First Look: Asus Eee PC S101

More Eee PC S101

Before opening the device and turning it on, we had a quick look at the battery because that's often been a hot topic on previous Eee PCs we've looked at.

Interestingly, it no longer attaches at the back behind the screen and is instead located directly beneath the trackpad. The battery on the engineering sample we had chance to look at happens to be a six-cell 4,900mAh Lithium Ion model.

We were told that this should last for approximately five hours, but we'll believe that when we see it. Unfortunately, we've only spent less than an hour with the S101 so far so we're unable to make any judgement on battery life at this time.

However, past models based on the Atom N270 processor like the Eee PC 1000 have been equipped with larger 6,600mAh batteries, but haven't managed to achieve their claimed battery life with WiFi enabled. What's interesting is that although the battery has a lower capacity than one that came with the Eee PC 1000, it's physically bigger so there is the potential to increase the capacity over time.


Opening the lid reveals the S101’s all new sleek and stylish brushed aluminium hand rest – it's a definite improvement over the old design, but I have my concerns about finger prints. That won't bother most, but brushed aluminium has a habit of picking up greasy finger prints and they're not exactly easy to get rid of.


The brushed aluminium is a different colour on both the 'brown' and champagne versions of the S101. The former has been anodized with a dark grey or boltgun dye, while the champagne version looks to have been soaked in a bath of champagne - I wonder whether Asus used Moët & Chandon or Champagne Mumm?


Jokes aside, I'm not a big fan of the champagne version's aesthetics - I guess it's just not manly enough for me and it's more likely to appeal to those with a feminine touch. Of course, we can't forget the graphite version as well, but we are unable to pass judgement on that model at the moment because we've not even seen pictures of it, let alone get hands-on with one in the flesh!